How to play Care Bears online
- Move your bear: left and right arrow keys
- Restart: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
What is in the prototype
The known prototype shows two Care Bears against a sky of clouds. One bear walks left and right on its own, wrapping around from one side of the screen to the other. You control the second bear, but only sideways. There is no score, no goal and no ending, and the bears do not yet have the tummy symbols that the finished game was built around. A small glitch also makes the screen stretch downwards a little at the right-hand edge.
The planned game and why it was cancelled
In the full game, Care Bears were to come down the screen and the player would collect the “Tummy Icons” from them, then put the collected icons into the right order before time ran out. It was deliberately kept easy, because the Care Bears toys were aimed at children under eight.
According to the prototype archive AtariProtos, the game got as far as beta testing before Parker Brothers’ marketing department stopped it. Marketing said the play was too dull and that the market for children’s games was shrinking. Nikolich later said that marketing did not really know what it wanted: it asked for a more action-heavy game for older children, which did not fit a licence made for small kids. She described the game as nearly finished, so a more complete version may still exist somewhere, but only this demo has surfaced.
Similar games to play next
- Strawberry Shortcake Musical Match-Ups – a finished Parker Brothers game based on another children’s licence
- Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventures in the Park – a game built around another 1980s toy line
- Big Bird’s Egg Catch – a gentle catching game made for young players
- Frogger – Parker Brothers’ best-known Atari 2600 cartridge